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Truer Crime

Did the Government Kill Martin Luther King Jr.?

Truer Crime

Celisia Stanton

True Crime

4.81.8K Ratings

🗓️ 19 January 2026

⏱️ 66 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Most of us were taught a simple version of what happened to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: a lone gunman, a closed case, a tragic end. This episode of Truer Crime looks beyond that familiar story. Drawing on historical records, testimony, and a little-known 1999 civil trial brought by the King family, it examines the years of surveillance, intimidation, and unanswered questions surrounding King’s assassination. Originally released one year ago, this episode feels newly relevant today, not because it offers easy answers, but because it asks what happens when narratives about state violence harden before the truth is fully known. Whether you’re listening for the first time or returning with new perspective, this is an invitation to slow down and look again. Want early access to every episode, all at once? Tenderfoot+ subscribers get the full case at the start of each month—plus ad-free listening and exclusive content from over 30 shows. Sign up at ⁠⁠⁠⁠tenderfootplus.com⁠⁠⁠⁠. Find all action items, sources, and resources in the show notes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠truercrimepodcast.com⁠⁠⁠⁠. Keep up with us through our ⁠⁠Truer Crime Substack Newsletter⁠⁠. Follow @truercrimepod on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠. Follow me @celisiastanton on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠. Sign up for my weekly newsletter, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Sincerely, Celisia⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're listening to a tenderfoot TV podcast.

0:07.6

Beware, extreme passion can lead to shocking consequences.

0:11.6

On scorned love kills the podcast from ID, find out what happens when lust and obsession

0:16.7

turn deadly. In each episode, you'll hear direct audio from the hit TV show and uncover true

0:21.7

unexpected stories about love gone wrong, about relationships that become a volatile mix of jealousy

0:27.9

and anger. Listen to scorned love kills on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:38.1

Hi, friends. I am so excited to share this new episode of true crime with you.

0:42.6

If you want to listen ad-free and get early access to all the episodes for this month's case,

0:47.6

you can subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus at Tenderfootplus.com or on Apple Podcasts.

0:52.8

It's also one of the best ways to support the show.

0:59.4

Hi friends. Today is Martin Luther King Day. It's also been one year since we first shared

1:07.6

this episode about the assassination of Dr. King.

1:14.0

Before we get into it, though, I want to be clear about something.

1:18.8

Today's episode is not the version of this story that most of us were taught.

1:22.4

It's not the clean, closed case that you might have heard about in school.

1:28.3

It's a deeper look at what happened in the years, months, and days leading up to King's death,

1:31.4

and at the questions that were quietly buried afterward.

1:37.2

I wanted to bring this episode back into the feed because it's not the kind of story that lives comfortably in the past. It's about state violence. It's about surveillance.

1:43.1

It's about how certain people come to be framed as destabilizing and what happens when institutions decide that someone is a problem that they no longer want to manage.

1:53.1

And if that feels uncomfortably relevant right now, you're not imagining it.

1:59.0

I'm recording this from Minneapolis, Minnesota, my home, a city that once again is trying to make sense of a death involving the state, a fast-form narrative, and a lot of unanswered questions.

2:13.7

A week and a half ago, Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother, a poet, a neighbor, was killed during an encounter with federal immigration agents here in my city.

...

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